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Global Trade Agreements and the Necessity for Entryism.

Image Source zazona.com

The real business of governing, ie how to manage the electorate’s money, is done by unelected trade representatives, at talks in luxury settings, protected against dissent by cordons sanitaires of barbed wire and armed troops, for the benefit of those whose generous capital donations keep those governments triumphant in the ratings wars and in power.

This is a global phenomenon. Van’s Gulf Coast Progressive Blog gets it:

So why the shift from America?s vast middle to the right? Is this shift entirely perceptual? The short answer to this is no. The Democratic Party is failing on many fronts. The DLC has moved the Democrats right of center, too far in my opinion. The DLC pushed NAFTA, GATT and laid the ground work for The WTO and CAFTA. These policies have hurt Middle-America by displacing workers, factories, and depressing entire communities. These trade agreements have put downward pressures on wages, working conditions and benefits just by the mere threat of moving a factory out of our country.

We continue to support the WTO Doha Round, in particular: a substantial reduction in agricultural subsidies, including the elimination of CAP production subsidies and tradebarriers and major revisions to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS),allowing countries to reverse their original decisions on liberalisation and/or add new derogations.

Protest vote Lib Dem all you want to, it won’t change a bloody thing. The same goes for the US and the Democrats. You could even vote Tory or Monster Raving Loony, or whatever the joke candidate is, it still wouldn’t change anything – nothing will, unless and until we have a worldwide revolt against the status quo.

So what am I saying here? Don’t vote, it’s a waste of time?

No. that would be a counsel of despair . What I am saying is how incredibly important bottom-up organisation is. Feet on the ground, seats round the table, bums on seats. Blogging is good – we need our own alternative media – but if blogspot, a profit-making entity, were to be shut down tomorrow we’d be totally buggered. Where are the progressive data havens, the samizdat proxy servers and so on? Indymedia had its servers seized on an FBI warrant . We can’t rely on the very structures we are fighting against to support us . We must build on the ground, in the community, and yes in the existing parties at the same time as building our own shadow media.

Am I advocating entryism? Why yes, if that’s what it takes. Entryism as political concept has a bad rep, and many progressive activists shy away from it because of its use as a far-left tactic. (‘Entryism’ is a logical conclusion from Leninist political theory which postulates that a “revolutionary vanguard” can successfully foment a revolution within a larger capitalist society.)

That it was used by trotskyists doesn’t make it any less a valid tactic. The Right certainly uses entryism – how ever do you think they got where they are, with Bush in the WH, Alito on the Supreme Court, and with the federal government, not to mention the tiniest county sinecures, packed with Republican party apparatchiks?

The common wisdom is that Labour’s old nemesis, Militant, were the supreme entryists, but I’d say it’s Tony Blair, a living example of how to infiltrate and take over a political party. Blair took what he needed from his opponents, the Left, and used their own weapons against them to stack the Commons, the Lords and the quangos with an army of Blairite clones.

We can do that too. The alternative would be a popular uprising, that would soon turn violent – not from any progressive aggression, but fron the meathead Right who’re just waiting for the chance to string up a few antiwar protestors and/or liberals, The US and UK governments haven’t exactly shown themselves tolerant of dissent either:

Kent State, May 4, 1970: America Kills Its Children

Twenty-five years ago this month, students came out on the Kent State campus and scores of others to protest the bombing of Cambodia– a decision of President Nixon’s that appeared to expand the Vietnam War. Some rocks were thrown, some windows were broken, and an attempt was made to burn the ROTC building. Governor James Rhodes sent in the National Guard.

The units that responded were ill-trained and came right from riot duty elsewhere; they hadn’t had much sleep. The first day, there was some brutality; the Guard bayonetted two men, one a disabled veteran, who had cursed or yelled at them from cars. The following day, May 4th, the Guard, commanded with an amazing lack of military judgment, marched down a hill, to a field in the middle of angry demonstrators, then back up again. Seconds before they would have passed around the corner of a large building, and out of sight of the crowd, many of the Guardsmen wheeled and fired directly into the students, hitting thirteen, killing four of them, pulling the trigger over and over, for thirteen seconds. (Count out loud–one Mississippi, two Mississippi, to see how long this is.) Guardsmen–none of whom were later punished, civilly, administratively, or criminally–admitted firing at specific unarmed targets; one man shot a demonstrator who was giving him the finger. The closest student shot was fully sixty feet away; all but one were more than 100 feet away; all but two were more than 200 feet away. One of the dead was 255 feet away; the rest were 300 to 400 feet away. The most distant student shot was more than 700 feet from the Guardsmen.

But 1970 was 35 years ago! That’s ancient history, surely? Uh, no…

2001 Genoa demo – An Eyewitness account from an ISM supporter.

I’ve just come back from Genoa tonight and I’m really angry. So I thought putting a bit down on paper would help. Presumably people have seen the media, distorted as it is. The worst things were obviously the murder of a 23 year old protestor by the police and the brutal Riot Police assault on the buildings occupied by the independent media people Indymedia which resulted in virtually (if not completely) everyone in the building being hospitalised and/or arrested. Latest Ive heard is that one or two of them (one man/one woman) may be in a coma.

Sunday 22 July 2001, Genoa Police Breach Human Rights:
British Citizens Imprisoned in Genoa Denied Contact with Consul: Public Figures Call for Immediate Action

Leading campaigners and human rights lawyers are demanding that the Italian authorities allow the British consul to contact British citizens currently held in Genoa.

The two Britons are Richard Moth, aged 31, and Nicola Docherty, aged 28. They were present last night at the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, the umbrella group which has co-ordinated groups in Genoa committed to peaceful protest. The police raided the Genoa Social Forum building last night. Reports, including an eye-witness account by a BBC reporter, indicate that many people were locked in the building and severely beaten by police. Richard and Nicola were both beaten by police. They were then taken to hospital, and from there into police custody.

An utterly respectable social worker friend of mine, a former parliamentary candidate, was beaten by riot police at Genoa. He still has hearing problems. Fighting agsint GATT and WTO can get you hurt.

Now does entryism sound a little more attractive?